Sweet Stress Relief

When under stress, many women tend to overeat sweets. The reason, according to several studies, is that sugar reduces the body's level of stress hormones known as glucocorticoids. Now research in rats suggests that both sugar and artificial sweeteners can affect these hormones, but in different ways. At the University of Cincinnati, lab rats were briefly subjected to either an emotionally stressful or a physically stressful event. Rats that drank a small amount of artificially sweetened water twice a day for two weeks produced fewer glucocorticoids in response to the emotional distress compared with rats that drank only plain water. And rats who drank a sugar solution twice a day had the lowest levels of the hormones, regardless of the type of stress they endured. Despite the evidence that sweet foods can help stabilize mood, "we're not advocating that people eat lots of junk food," says the lead researcher, Yvonne Ulrich-Lai. She speculates that eating fruit rather than candy might produce this effect as well, but research that explores exactly how sweet flavors act on the human brain is needed to determine alternative ways to achieve the response.